November 10, 2008
Washington Post columnist to discuss sexism, media bias
Marie Cocco will discuss "She-Devils and 'Caribou Barbies" on November 13.
june.avignone@rochester.edu
If the truth be known, Sarah Palin isn’t actually a “Caribou Barbie” doll and Hillary Clinton isn’t really a “she-devil,” so what went on with the “fact-based” media during the presidential race of 2008? Washington Post columnist Marie Cocco, who has covered national politics for more than 30 years, says that question lurks insidiously in America’s post-election air.
“A woman hasn’t run for national office since Geraldine Ferraro 24 years ago, and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had Hillary Clinton sprouting devil horns. Can you imagine a multi-million dollar media outlet doing that to a man, any man?” asks Cocco, who will discuss how the media— from the New York Times to an increasingly mean-spirited blogosphere—covered the 2008 presidential campaign. The talk, entitled “Framing Political Women: She-Devils and Caribou Barbies,” will take place at 4. p.m. Thursday, November 13, in the Gowen Room of Wilson Commons. This lecture is part of a new series called “Cracks in the Glass Ceiling,” cosponsored by the Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership and the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies.
Beyond personal politics and legitimate questions about qualifications, the dark stain that has been exposed this year is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of American culture, says Cocco, who has covered the last four presidential campaigns, the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the 2000 election deadlock, and the transition of Hillary Rodham Clinton from first lady to senator. In 2002, Cocco’s twice-a-week column was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group. In 2005, she left New York’s Newsday to devote full-time to her popular column.
“This election was an eye opener for many women who thought that the issues of clothes, cleavage, and cackle were behind us,” says Cocco. “As a culture we need to acknowledge that this poisonous sexism is in our system and tolerated in a way that racism may no longer be. A man who has lots of children can run for national office without having his fatherhood questioned.”
In all of her years covering Washington politics, Cocco says she was “shocked by the profoundly sexist discourse and hypocrisy” of the mainstream and liberal press, such as the online leftists who took to calling Palin “Caribou Barbie.” As Cocco wrote in her May 15 Washington Post column “Misogyny I Won’t Miss”: “I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan ‘Bros before Hos.’ The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.”
The path ahead for women in politics will be challenging as a result of this year’s media coverage, she says. “Women are fragmented and as long as we are we will remain at each other’s throats,” says Cocco. “There was no breaking of the glass ceiling, and we may well go another 24 years due to the failure of the entire system to cope with women in a less adolescent way.”
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